The present application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/260,965, filed Sep. 30, 2002, U.S. Pat. No. 6,726,485;                which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/127,111, filed Jul. 31, 1998 and issued as U.S. Pat. No. 6,464,503;        which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/890,294, filed Jul. 9, 1997 and issued as U.S. Pat. No. 5,823,782;        which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/581,437, filed Dec. 29, 1995, now abandoned.        
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an educational system for teaching children language and/or arithmetic, and in particular to a system where a child arranges one or more computer-recognizable characters on a working platform to spell words or provide a mathematical result in response to computer generated questions or prompts, the system then indicating whether the words or mathematical result is correct.
2. Description of the Related Art
As computers continue to grow faster and smarter and smaller, they have become omnipresent, reaching people of all shapes and sizes. Nevertheless, there remains one unchanging constant: in order for the computer to provide the information or operate as desired, some type of data must be provided to the computer. From punchcards in the late 60′s and 70′s to teletypes of the 70′s and 80′s to CRTs of the 80′s and to mouses and keyboards of today, there always remains a way for the user to enter data into the computer.
There has been one segment of the population that has largely been excluded from the computer revolution, the young child. This is true primarily for two reasons. First, young children have not yet developed the metal capabilities or the motor skills to interact well with conventional computers, which require data to be entered, for example via the key board or mouse, in a fixed format. Secondly, young children are interested and entertained by simple sensory input, and the vast resources offered by conventional computers are generally too advanced to be of interest to them.
One simple sensory input of great interest to children is the sense of touch. It is why young children are commonly more interested in the box or wrapping of a gift than the actual gift contained therein. Several games have been developed which indulge a child's sense of touch, such as for example those including building blocks. Some such tactile systems also include letters in an attempt to educate a child while they are using the blocks. However, such tactile systems are ineffective without adult instruction as to what the letters represent. Moreover, the inventors of the present invention are unaware of any such tactile systems that work in combination with the vast resources provided by a computer.